A Dodgers Pitcher Goes Six Innings. Great Job. Next.

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The ace Clayton Kershaw pitching Thursday for the Dodgers, who have the best record in the National League. Their starters were averaging 89 pitches per start, lowest among winning teams.CreditSean M. Haffey/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Dodgers set a record for relief appearances last season. It seemed to be a result of a barrage of injuries that claimed even the game’s best pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, for much of the summer. Mostly, though, it was by design. The Dodgers want it this way, and the results are convincing.

After winning the National League West last season, the Dodgers now have their league’s best record. While the Dodgers have reduced their overall rate of relief appearances this season — to roughly 3.1 per game, from 3.7 last year — their starters were averaging just 89 pitches per start through Thursday, the lowest among teams with winning records.

Their opponents recognize the strategy: a flurry of fresh arms to keep them off balance.

“Alex Wood was pitching really good yesterday,” Colorado’s Nolan Arenado said recently at Dodger Stadium, a day after Wood fired six strong innings, allowing just one run and three hits. “If that was Kershaw, he’d be going seven or eight — but they stopped him at six. I would have thought he’d keep going, because he was dealing, and they just brought in different arms and kept going. That’s just the way it is.”

Three Dodgers relievers swiftly finished off the Rockies — nine up, nine down — to help Wood improve his record to 8-0. Wood, now 9-0, has a 1.83 earned run average, but he has recorded an out after the sixth inning just twice in 12 starts.

Wood is healthy after missing much of last season with elbow trouble. He streamlined his mechanics over the winter, staying tighter and more compact on his front side, an adjustment that he said helped him throw harder. But he has learned to accept the Dodgers’ approach and its foundation in data that warns against letting starters face a lineup too many times.

“The numbers don’t lie,” Wood said. “Regardless of whether you’re good or awful, things progressively get a little bit worse each time through, pretty much no matter what. The way that they look at it is, ‘Well, let’s not go four times through the order.’ It’s one of those things where that’s where the game’s headed. It’s been frustrating at times, but you’ve got to control what you can control.”

Rich Hill has made just one start longer than six innings, the same as Brandon McCarthy and Hyun-Jin Ryu. The Dodgers still pay premium prices — those three pitchers will make a combined $32 million this season — and do not mind that none of those three, or Wood, has ever worked 200 innings in a season. Only 15 pitchers in the majors reached that figure in 2016, the fewest in any nonstrike season.

“As an organization, we feel 200 innings is not the norm anymore,” Manager Dave Roberts said. “As a potential World Series team, to expect guys to go pitch through October, 180 could be 200. The key is that our starting pitchers have understood that if we can cut an inning off here and there to kind of lighten their load and gain it back on the back end to keep them strong throughout the season, it’s a benefit for all of us.

“I’m not going into a game saying, ‘Hey, this guy is only gonna go five innings,’ because I would love them to go deep. But if the efficiency is not there, I’m not afraid to make the move.”

Roberts typically has seven relievers to deploy before getting to his closer, Kenley Jansen. That configuration, he said, lends itself to using relievers more often, however he chooses.

“I think the biggest piece is that our starters have bought into understanding that I don’t need to push them every time they get on the mound, and our bullpen guys understand they might pitch in the fourth or the seventh or the eighth,” Roberts said. “They don’t have a designated role.”

The Dodgers, like many teams, have also embraced the use of the new 10-day disabled list, which can keep starters fresh by giving them downtime to deal with minor injuries while missing only a start or two. Hill, McCarthy, Ryu and Wood have all been on the D.L., and McCarthy — who is there now with knee trouble — said the Dodgers’ less-is-more strategy was becoming widespread.

“That’s one of the shifts that’s coming,” McCarthy said. “We’ve seen a lot of teams this year that are too slow to adapt to it. You see their starting pitcher has this 110-pitch limit or something and he’s gonna throw through it, and you watch them lose a game right in the last two innings — with a starter who’s faded and a good offense who now knows what they’re looking for, and the surprise is gone.

“For us it’s: If you’re in full control of the game and you can get deeper and your pitch count makes sense, then just keep going. If not, it’s: Let a starter help you win a game, but maybe not let him lose you one in a spot where we don’t have to have that happen.”

The challenge for the Dodgers is to keep their busy relievers strong, too, and avoid a fifth consecutive season of losing in the N.L. playoffs. For now, though, they are winning big — and setting a trend.

It’s Just for Fun Again

On Sunday, Major League Baseball will announce the rosters for its All-Star Game, which returns as a pure exhibition on July 11 in Miami. The last 14 All-Star Games were used to determine home-field advantage for the World Series, which went to the winning league. That link was eliminated as part of the collective bargaining agreement reached last fall.

“The home-field advantage was a good thing because people took the game serious; managers did also,” said Houston Astros designated hitter Carlos Beltran, a nine-time All-Star. “But at the same time, I consider that a little bit unfair for teams that ended up with the best record and they didn’t get the home-field advantage.”

Actually, that happened only three times with the link in effect — in 2004, 2011 and 2016. Before that rule — which was established in response to a tie at the 2002 game in Milwaukee, the hometown of Bud Selig, the commissioner at the time — home-field advantage in the World Series simply alternated leagues each season. Now it will go to the World Series team with the better record.

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American League All-Stars after last year’s win. The game no longer settles home field for the World Series.CreditGregory Bull/Associated Press

As it turned out, the big prize (hosting Games 1, 2, 6 and 7) did not offer much of an edge. Only three World Series since 2003 have stretched to a full seven games — in 2011, 2014 and 2016 — and the visiting team won Game 7 in two of those three years.

Astros catcher Brian McCann, who was the most valuable player of the 2010 All-Star Game, said removing the link would clear up confusion over the purpose of the event.

“I don’t think the All-Star Game should count for home-field advantage,” McCann said. “I just feel like everybody deserves a chance to play, and if you don’t play somebody because it’s not a good matchup, maybe he goes to one his whole career and never gets that at-bat or that inning. I just don’t think it’s for that.”

Most All-Star managers, though, still seemed to favor participation over winning, bringing in a raft of substitutes and removing slightly better players as the game went on. That created a muddled message, as M.L.B. trumpeted the competition while the managers generally just wanted the players to have fun.

Another wrinkle in the new collective bargaining agreement is a change in the makeup and selection of the rosters. Managers will no longer determine All-Star picks. Their selections had been winnowed in recent years anyway, with players choosing most of the reserves and pitchers, after fans had voted on the starting lineups.

The size of the rosters is also slightly smaller now, down to 32 per team, from 34. That will make for more snubs in Sunday’s announcement, since every team still must be represented — a quirky but charming rule that makes predicting the rosters fun, but complicated.

Here is a guess at how the teams should look, with starters designated by an asterisk. A few players, like Milwaukee’s Chase Anderson and Houston’s Dallas Keuchel, are not included because they will still be on the disabled list. The Angels’ Mike Trout, who could be off the D.L. by then, did make the cut.

And, yes, Clayton Kershaw — not Max Scherzer, whose statistics are slightly better — would be the starting pitcher for the National League. Somehow, Kershaw has never started an All-Star Game. It’s time for that to change.